


The girl with the mauve hair

by ToxicPineapple



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Character Study, Dramatic Irony, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Feelings, Melancholy, Nonbinary Kamukura Izuru, Takes place between the Kamukura Project and the Tragedy, They're just vibin, This one's really sad LOL sorry Newt, Unreliable Narrator, Which is to say Izuru hasn't been corrupted yet in this one, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28448577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: (Though, Kamukura Izuru suspects that perhaps that’s merely how the girl with the mauve hair speaks, in a tone of voice that is slightly flat and very soft, because she seems like the sort to do things in a soft and flat way, all rounded edges and molasses movements, her head lifting and eyes blinking slowly across the courtyard every time she checks to see if her friend is in the vicinity.)Kamukura Izuru wonders, from time to time, if there was ever a time when her friend came to meet her on the regular.There must have been. Nobody would wait so long and so patiently for someone who never came. But it’s difficult to imagine, if only because Kamukura Izuru has spent so long watching the girl with the mauve hair wait around for a person who, Kamukura Izuru suspects, is never going to come again.---After Hinata disappeared, Nanami kept waiting for him.(Kamukura Izuru watches from the sidelines as Nanami Chiaki waits for a man who will never return.)
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Nanami Chiaki, Kamukura Izuru/Nanami Chiaki
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	The girl with the mauve hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [memefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/memefair/gifts).



> this took me a while because i don't know how to write izuru and i procrastinated. it's ironic because you gave me SO many ships i could've written and i chose one with a character who i've literally never written for before
> 
> anyway :'D i hope you enjoy this newt i really liked to drawing you did for me so here are your children

There’s a girl with mauve hair who sits out in the courtyard every day at lunch, her back propped up against the rim of the fountain, a faded red gameboy held in her hands.

She’ll spend the lunch break playing her game, occasionally munching on some kind of snack, looking up every once and a while, her pale pink eyes doing a sweep of the area before returning to her video game.

If Kamukura Izuru had to guess, it would be because she’s looking for somebody, that the girl with mauve hair looks up so often, her lips rolling in between her teeth, a single wrinkle appearing on the bridge of her nose. She does a good job at seeming emotionless, but there are small tells, from the way that her hands occasionally tighten on her gameboy, to the way that she will shift from side to side on the dusty ground, that speak to her apprehension.

Kamukura Izuru believes that the girl with the mauve hair is looking for a friend. Probably a friend who she was meant to meet there, at the fountain, and enjoy her lunch with. An important friend, if she’ll go and eat lunch alone every day and wait for them rather than sitting with anybody else. At first Kamukura Izuru thought that there was a possibility that she was simply a lonely person who had nowhere else to go, but they’ve observed the way that the girl with the mauve hair interacts with her classmates, and they all seem to adore her.

She seems to adore them, too, from the way that her eyes seem to widen and sparkle when she sees them. Her teacher seems fond of her, and from what Kamukura Izuru has observed, watching her class from the sidelines, she’s almost the glue of that class. The reason they all are attending and working hard together. Which isn’t to say that the girl with mauve hair seems like the social butterfly type; if anything she seems more interested in napping through morning classes and messing around on her gameboy than really interacting with anybody, but the mutual love shared between her and her classmates is obvious, even to the eyes of Kamukura Izuru, that know no love.

No, the girl with the mauve hair has plenty of places that she could be, but only one place that she would like to be. Only one person who she would like to be with. And for reasons that Kamukura Izuru can’t yet parse, that person never arrives.

Or at least, they haven’t, for as long as Kamukura Izuru has been observing the girl with the mauve hair. They’re coming up to two weeks, now, if Kamukura Izuru’s memory is to be trusted-- and it is, it always is. Kamukura Izuru is without flaw in every practical way, and their memory is no exception. Especially when it comes to experiments and observations, and though the girl with the mauve hair isn’t, strictly speaking, an  _ experiment  _ of theirs, they are curious about why she comes to this same place every day when it continues to yield no results, so they continue to watch, waiting to see if she will reveal anything new.

She has a simple routine. She comes around to the fountain at the beginning of the lunch period and does a little look around, subtle enough that if you aren’t really paying attention (which Kamukura Izuru is, they always are) you might not pick up on it. Then she sits herself down and takes out her gameboy, getting comfortable, fitting a rice cracker or a spicy cheeto in her mouth and powering up her game. She doesn’t move for the entirety of the lunch period, even if some of her friends come along to ask her to join them. The girl with the mauve hair always has some kind of excuse, which she always gives in the same tone of voice, slightly flat, very soft, before looking back to her game.

(Though, Kamukura Izuru suspects that perhaps that’s merely how the girl with the mauve hair speaks, in a tone of voice that is slightly flat and very soft, because she seems like the sort to do things in a soft and flat way, all rounded edges and molasses movements, her head lifting and eyes blinking slowly across the courtyard every time she checks to see if her friend is in the vicinity.)

Kamukura Izuru wonders, from time to time, if there was ever a time when her friend came to meet her on the regular.

There must have been. Nobody would wait so long and so patiently for someone who never came. But it’s difficult to imagine, if only because Kamukura Izuru has spent so long watching the girl with the mauve hair wait around for a person who, Kamukura Izuru suspects, is never going to come again.

They have to wonder, in a detached sort of way, why that even is. Kamukura Izuru feels no love, no earthly attachment to any human being, but it is their understanding that normal humans, regular, boring humans, they crave companionship. And as a companion, the girl with the mauve hair seems decent, if not more than that. The kind of loyalty that drives a person to wait day after day after day for a person who doesn’t appear to be coming… it’s rare, in normal, boring, regular humans. It’s rare in any human, even Kamukura Izuru, if you could truly call them a human.

So Kamukura Izuru doesn’t understand why the person who the girl with the mauve hair is waiting for his making her wait to begin with. But it’s hardly Kamukura Izuru’s place to intervene. They’re an observer, is all, during the hours that they spend observing her, waiting to see if her mystery friend will ever arrive. That is Kamukura Izuru’s role. Nothing more than that.

There comes an afternoon, though, when the girl with the mauve hair sits down by the fountain, and she takes out her gameboy, and she powers it on, and then she stares at the screen with glassy pink eyes, and Kamukura Izuru thinks,  _ perhaps today is the last day she will wait,  _ and she even goes so far as to close the gameboy, her pale hands shaking on the machine, but instead of getting up and leaving, the

girl with the mauve hair puts her gameboy down and draws her knees into her chest, tilting her face into her skirt, and her shoulders begin to shake.

Kamukura Izuru, after a while of watching her shake, realises that the girl with the mauve hair is crying.

She’s never done that before.

It’s only natural for people to cry-- especially people who, like the girl with the mauve hair, have waited and waited for something that is never going to arrive-- but for some reason it gives Kamukura Izuru pause, while they stand off on the side, tucked away where she could never find them. They don’t know how to identify the sensation that occurs in their chest; it’s unfamiliar, and Kamukura Izuru is not accustomed to unfamiliarity, at least not in excess, but it’s unpleasant. It’s decidedly unpleasant, like a crawling tightness, a squeeze, and Kamukura Izuru decides, as a lump rises in their throat, that they don’t like the feeling at all.

So they move from behind the tree and silently approach the girl with the mauve eyes, and once they’re standing in front of her, watching her cry, curled up into a ball, they slowly crouch down in front of her, and reach a hand into their breast pocket, withdrawing a handkerchief, which they hold out to her on two fingers.

“Nanami Chiaki,” Kamukura Izuru says, after realising that the silence of their approach may require them to speak to grab their attention. “You won’t like to feel your skirt after it has absorbed all your tears.”

Nanami lifts her head, and Kamukura sees that her eyes are puffy and reddened, but not so much so that it couldn’t be fixed by a splash of cold water later, once she’s calmed down. There are more tears falling, though, and Nanami is making no move to accept the handkerchief, so Kamukura moves their hand forward and uses the cloth to gently wipe her eyes.

She allows it, and Kamukura keeps their touch gentle, because any touch on their own skin feels like pin pricks so they have no idea the pressure sensitivity of a normal person, but after a moment Nanami’s eyebrows knit together with confusion, and she takes a moment to find her voice (presumably) before she speaks.

“Who are you?” Her voice is slightly thick, slightly rough, but soft, and flat, as it usually is. Familiar, which, Kamukura thinks, is because of how often they’ve heard it over the course of the past two weeks.

And for no other reason.

“Are you in the reserve course? I’ve never seen you around before,” Nanami sniffles, “I think.”

She does that often, end her statements that way, like she isn’t sure. Kamukura wonders if it truly is because she isn’t sure, or if it’s just one of those things she says. It would take further observation to come to a conclusive answer to this question, however, so they will bookmark it for now and come back to it later.

(...It’s the latter.)

“I am not in the main course,” Kamukura Izuru says, and they brush away the tears from Nanami’s other cheek, focusing on her face, but not her eyes. They have given her a sufficient amount of eye contact for this interaction, they think. “Why do you cry alone when you have a class of people who would sit with you?”

Nanami blinks, like she wasn’t expecting the question, and when her tears stop falling, Kamukura retracts their hand. She is quiet for a moment, as Nanami often is while she contemplates how to reply, looking at Kamukura like she’s still a bit disoriented. (That would not be entirely unfair of her.) “It’s because… they wouldn’t get it, not really.” Nanami’s eyes dart downwards, and she puffs out her cheeks. “I’m… sorry, it’s… weird to say, because I don’t know you.”

“You are under no obligation to tell me about it,” Kamukura says, “though if it helps, I am aware that you are crying because you are waiting for somebody who has not come.”

“...How?” Nanami sounds… as incredulous as her manner of speaking will allow.

“There are things that I know inexplicably,” Kamukura replies, in lieu of telling Nanami that she has been the subject of their observations as of late, as they understand that to be something that most people would be disturbed by. “Regardless, even if your friends do not understand, it is likely that they would be happy to support you through whatever you need.”

There is another moment of silence, and then the girl with the mauve hair says, “I don’t want to bother them.”

And Kamukura Izuru could say,  _ You would not be bothering them,  _ because she wouldn’t; that’s how love works, people do things for each other, because they want to, because it makes them happy. But Kamukura Izuru does not claim to know how love works, not for normal people and not for anyone, and they should not speak of it to Nanami Chiaki, who seems to love so deeply, and yet…

(Something that Kamukura doesn’t quite understand yet, about humans, is how they can allow love to be so wasted as it is. Whoever it is that Nanami Chiaki is waiting for here, day after day after day, they don’t deserve her patience. They don’t deserve her time. But she gives it to them anyway, and they don’t deserve  _ that,  _ either.)

So Kamukura Izuru says, “Ah,” and then they shift to sit beside her, not close enough to touch her, but close enough that they can sense her presence beside them, and leans against the fountain, though it’s uncomfortable and dirty and they’d like to sit somewhere else, actually, somewhere designed for sitting. They resist the urge to get up and leave and remain stationary, instead, straightening out their legs in front of them.

“What are you doing?” Nanami Chiaki asks. Her voice is quiet.

“Keeping you company,” Izuru Kamukura replies. They look up at the sky, and not at her. There is a sadness in their chest, at least, they believe it is sadness, and they hold onto it for a moment, because it’s…

Familiar, somehow, in the exact same way that sitting right here beside the girl with the mauve hair is familiar, that Kamukura Izuru can’t quite put a word to.

(Doesn’t know what kind of word that would be, if they tried.)

“Why?”

“If not me, then who?” Kamukura looks over at Nanami, their eyebrows raised just a fraction, and she looks back for a moment before pulling her gaze away, and Kamukura allows their eyes to linger on her for a second longer, and then they look back at the sky.

She doesn’t answer their question, but Kamukura Izuru knows what the girl with the mauve hair is thinking, regardless.

She’s thinking,  _ If not you, then the person I really want to be here, maybe they would be here, instead. _

But Kamukura Izuru thinks it’s best not to dwell on impossibilities, so this will do, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i know it's sad whoever said kamunami was a happy pairing smh my head


End file.
